


Bruce Banner Does Not Wear Tweed

by tsundokus



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bruce is Emotionally Constipated, M/M, Tony isn't Iron Man, bruce isn't the hulk but he still has anger management issues, thai food abound, they design prostheses, they're both really gay for each other, tony isn't much better, we don't deserve pepper potts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 11:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11691084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsundokus/pseuds/tsundokus
Summary: In which Bruce works for Stark Industries and is helping Tony design prostheses, Pepper is long-suffering, and there is copious Thai food.--“God knows I suffer,” Tony groaned, flopping onto the couch with a flourish.“I’m sure you’ll find the strength to make it through,” Pepper replied solemnly.





	Bruce Banner Does Not Wear Tweed

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is the first thing I've written since 2014 and I wrote it all in one day completely on a whim. If I continue it will probably be 2-3 chapters total. Let me know if you'd like to see more!
> 
> Warnings: none, really? Both Bruce and Tony inadvertantly make mildly ableist comments on occasion (ex. implying that a disabled person inherently has a lower quality of life)
> 
> Also, bear with me - I am not nor have I ever been an engineer, I know nothing about prostheses, and I have never eaten Thai food in my life. Enjoy!

Date: 2 August 2017, 12:08pm  
To: R.B. Banner   
From: Pepper Potts   
Subject: Designs for Gen 2 Bio-implant Prostheses

Dr. Banner, 

Please find attached the preliminary designs for the Gen 2 prostheses project. Your input on the design as well as assistance with the specifics of the biological and biochemical intricacies of the designs would be appreciated. I personally apologize for the delay in these designs being sent over to you; I was given to believe that Mr. Stark had sent them last week. Any inquiries as well as your input on the project should be sent to Mr. Stark at astark@si.org. 

Regards,  
Pepper Potts, BA, MBA  
Personal Assistant to Tony Stark  
Stark Industries  
vpotts@si.org  
749.183.3277 ext. 2028

\--

Date: 2 August 2017, 4:12pm  
To: Tony Stark   
From: R.B. Banner   
Subject: Designs for Gen 2 Bio-implant Prostheses [Attachment]

Mr. Stark, 

I’ve received the designs for the advanced prostheses project and have some preliminary input. Please find attached my initial report. Overall, the design is efficient and mechanically sound. However, the cost of the proposed materials would make the product so expensive as to be impossible for most of those who need it to access it. I have enclosed some suggestions for material substitutions as well as alterations to make integration with the nervous system safer and more efficient. Please reply with any questions or additional information. 

Dr. R. Bruce Banner, PhD, PhD, MD  
Stark Industries  
rbanner@si.org  
749.183.3276 ext. 1859

\--

“Pepper!”

Pepper sighed. She should have known that clearing her afternoon to have a somewhat relaxing half-day off would be fruitless. She closed her book, resigning herself to finishing it later, and set down her glass of rose. “Yes, Tony?”

“What is this? What is a Dr. Bruce Banner and since when does he work here and since when did I send him the Gen 2 designs? And why is he e-mailing me? Criticizing my designs! My designs, Pep!” He was waving a tablet in front of her face, which she promptly took from him. She held up a hand to silence him while she read the e-mail. When she finished, she closed her eyes and asked herself, not for the first time, why she stayed in this job. 

“He wasn’t criticizing your designs, Tony, he was offering input. Dr. Banner was hired into the R&D department a few months ago, and he was determined to be the best option for collaborating on the Gen 2 project because he has an MD as well as a PhD in biochemistry, so he’ll be able to help with the integration aspects and making sure these prostheses don’t kill anyone. You’re going to read over his feedback, set up a meeting, and work on this together. This could be huge, Tony.”

“God knows I suffer,” Tony groaned, flopping onto the couch with a flourish. 

“I’m sure you’ll find the strength to make it through,” Pepper replied solemnly.

\--

Date: 4 August 2017, 1:26am  
To: R. B. Banner   
From: Tony Stark   
Subject: Re: Designs for Gen 2 Bio-implant Prostheses

If we change the materials we sacrifice quality. And it’s not going to be that expensive anyway! It’s not like everyone needs something as fancy as this is going to be. This is, like, luxury prosthesis. And anyway, insurance is a thing! It’s not like people would be footing the bill all by themselves. By the way, we can’t shave any volume off the shoulder for the arm, the wires that are supposed to connect to the nerves have to go somewhere and I can only make them so small before they can’t do their job anymore. 

-Stark

\--

Date: 4 August 2017, 8:42am  
To: Tony Stark   
From: R. B. Banner   
Subject: Re: Re: Designs for Gen 2 Bio-implant Prostheses

Mr. Stark, 

With all due respect, there are cheaper materials that can be used while maintaining the integrity of the design. As it is, the bare minimum cost for an arm analog prosthesis would be upwards of twenty thousand dollars. Sure, insurance might cover some of it, but not the whole cost, and not everyone has insurance. What’s the point of making something like this if you’re not going to make it accessible to the people who actually need it? A decent quality of life is a right, not a privilege afforded only to those rich enough to buy it. Most of the people who need these can’t afford to drop twenty thousand dollars on one. 

Dr. R. Bruce Banner, PhD, PhD, MD  
Stark Industries  
rbanner@si.org  
749.183.3276 ext. 1859

\--

Date: 4 August 2017, 11:43pm  
To: R. B. Banner   
From: Tony Stark   
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Designs for Gen 2 Bio-implant Prostheses

Come by my lab when you get a chance. We’ll talk.

-Stark

\--

He was going to lose his job.

Bruce pressed his fists into his eyes and counted to ten. Admittedly, sending an angry e-mail to the CEO of the company he’d just been hired to three months ago was probably not the most prudent idea, but he hadn’t been thinking entirely clearly when he sent it. In any case, everything in the email had been true. He was relatively sure that Stark was going to fire him, although it was odd that Stark needed to call Bruce to his lab for that rather than send an e-mail. He sighed, turning to Darcy. “Darcy, can you make me some tea, please? And grab me an ibuprofen, if you don’t mind.”

“You got it, boss,” Darcy replied, hopping off her stool and setting off for the break room. It was times like this he was grateful to have her as a lab assistant, dirty jokes and nosiness aside.

Bruce fired off a quick email to Jen (“Might be getting fired. Updates soon”) and then pulled up his calendar. Predictably, it was basically empty, the only event being lunch with Thor next week. He scheduled “Meeting with Mr. Stark” for 2pm the next day, because there was no point drawing out the inevitable, then logged out of his account. Rereading the email over and over wasn’t going to do his temperament any favors, and he had work to do.

He went back to the data from the experiment from last week and started scrolling through it, making a few notes, while Vanessa the Biophysicist gave him an unimpressed look from the other side of the lab.

\--

At 1:45pm the next day, his computer chimed. He wrapped up all of his projects, shut down his computer, and caught the elevator to the top floor of R&D that was Stark’s personal lab. 

When Bruce stepped out of the elevator, Stark was hunched over something made of metal, a mask over his face and a welder in his hand. Bruce cleared his throat, knocking on the wall next to him, and Stark looked up distractedly. 

“JARVIS, who is this sexy tweedy professor and why is he in my lab?” Stark seemed to be talking to... the ceiling, and Bruce shifted on his feet, looking around. He wasn’t actually wearing any tweed. 

“Dr. Bruce Banner,” he spoke up, maybe a little more sharply than was strictly necessary. “We’ve been e-mailing about the Gen 2 project, you asked me to come see you in your lab.”

“You’re Banner? Shit, Pep didn’t tell me you were this hot, I feel cheated. JARVIS, make a note, add to Pepper’s contract that she has to tell me when new employees are hot.” Stark appeared to give him a thorough once-over. Bruce rolled his shoulders uncomfortably under his gaze. This was already shaping up to be a trying encounter even if somehow he wasn’t about to get fired. 

“Sorry, who’s – JARVIS?” he asked, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Stark was walking around now, closing out programs on various monitors around the lab and swiping away holograms with a flick of his wrist.

“Note made, Sir. Dr. Banner, I am an artificial intelligence system designed personally by Mr. Stark to serve his needs,” said a disembodied, nominally British voice. Bruce flinched in surprise at the unexpected voice, but that actually made a lot of sense. If the rumors of Stark’s eccentricities were true, it wasn’t surprising that he’d need a computer program butler to remind him to eat or what day it was.

“Oh, uh, hi, JARVIS. Good to meet you,” he replied automatically. He wasn’t entirely sure what the socially acceptable way to talk to an AI was, but then again Bruce wasn’t great with social mores of any kind. If anything, he’d rather talk to a computer program than an actual human most of the time. 

“Likewise, Dr. Banner,” JARVIS said pleasantly. 

“Closest thing I’ll ever have to a kid,” Stark offered. “Pretty much the most advanced AI in, I don’t know, ever? He basically has a sense of humor, has sarcasm down pat, he’s great. Master of deadpan. You’ll love him, I promise.” He turned to face Bruce again. “Coffee?”

“I’m sure,” Bruce said dryly. “No thanks, I’m – not a coffee person.”

Stark affected a gasp and a scandalized look at that, and Bruce rolled his eyes. “Tut tut, Banner dear. Not a coffee person, pfft. I don’t trust people who don’t drink coffee. What do you want then, tea?” He said the word ‘tea’ as if he were saying ‘flesh-eating bacteria’ or some other similarly horrifying word.

Bruce closed his eyes and counted to five. “I’m fine, Mr. Stark, I don’t need anything. What did you want to discuss?”

“Oh! Oh, right. The Gen 2 project. Listen, so I was going over your notes, and you’ve got some good ideas. You’re right that certain parts of it don’t need to be particularly strong because that’s not the purpose they serve, and we really only need it to be able to withstand what a normal arm can, although if we could surpass that, that’d be, you know, awesome. So I was thinking at first, nickel’s nice and strong, not too heavy, it’ll do the job, then I realized, Occam’s razor and all that, kind of annoyed that I missed the simple answer—“

“—steel’s lighter and cheaper anyway,” Bruce finished. “Exactly. Which is why it would work a hell of a lot better than the vibranium or adamantium you originally wanted to use. There’s no reason any normal person would need something that strong, or that prohibitively expensive. If they did they could always personally commission it, anyway. But even the casing doesn’t need to be steel, just the reinforcements inside. And we’re going to want to make the weight—“

“—similar to what a normal human limb would weigh, right, of course.” Stark paused and took a step closer to Bruce. Bruce resisted the urge to flinch or step backwards in response. “Great to meet you, Dr. Banner,” Stark said seriously. “I read up on you, your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. Also, again, really hot, how did I not know this? You’ve got that whole,” he waved a hand, “rumpled professor vibe going for you, it’s a good look.” Stark was grinning.

Bruce sighed. He seemed to be doing a lot of that around Stark. And then it occurred to him that this did not appear to be him getting fired. Which was. Good, if more than a little bit surprising. He blinked. “Um. Thanks?”

“You’re welcome,” Stark replied brightly. “Come in, come in, sit, we have lots to talk about. We’ll be much more productive like this than over e-mail, and this way I get some nice eye candy on top of the brain candy.”

\--

It wasn’t until a few hours later that they took a break and Tony cajoled Banner into having dinner in the lab with him, and Tony ordered Thai food. Tony watched Banner as he neatly ate his poh taek soup. “So, Banner,” he started, “what were you doing before SI? We just hired you a few months ago, right?”

Banner nodded. He always seemed so tense. Tony couldn’t help but wonder what it would take to make the guy let loose and relax a little. “I was, um, around a bit. I was sort of a travelling medic. Doctors Without Borders without the fancy stuff,” he shrugged. “I spent some time in Kolkata.”

“Fun stuff. I went to Mumbai for business a few times, it was hot. The food was good, though, so, you know,” Tony reasoned. “Wife? Kids? Pets? I want the deets, babe.” 

Banner blushed a little at that, to Tony’s delight. “No wife or kids to speak of. I have a dog, a husky mix named Kepler,” which was just incredibly and deliciously nerdy, if you asked Tony. 

“Of course your dog is named Kepler,” Tony snorted. Banner laughed, and there was a comfortable silence for about 4.2 seconds before Banner got twitchy again, and looked at his watch. Tony quirked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, um – sorry, Stark, but I’ve got to go. I have things to wrap up in my own lab. Dog to feed. All that. I’ll e-mail you,” he promised.

Tony nodded, standing up with his food. “See you soon, Banner. Do e-mail me, we’ll talk soon. I’m thinking this could really be something. We make a good team, big guy.”

\--

Honestly, Bruce reflected, that could have gone a lot worse. Stark wasn’t really that bad.

\--

Date: 7 August 2017, 1:28pm  
To: Tony Stark   
From: R. B. Banner   
Subject: Testing and Input for Gen 2 Project

Stark,

I’ve been thinking that it would be good if we had someone come in who had a prosthetic already who could give us input on how to optimize these ones, as well as potentially help with testing. Do you think Stark Industries could find someone?

-Bruce Banner

\--

Date: 8 August 2017, 4:11am  
To: R. B. Banner   
From: Tony Stark   
Subject: Re: Testing and Input for Gen 2 Project

Solid idea. I’ll ask an old buddy of mine and see if he’d be interested. 

P.S. Call me Tony, we’re science bros now.

-Tony

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading - please leave a comment/kudos if you want to read more!


End file.
